Bus296 a Better Florist Service Marketing

Executive Summary

A Better Florist (ABF) emphasises significantly on convenience and flexibility by providing accessible retail stores and online services, with the option for its target market to customise orders. It also offers complimentary same-day delivery of fresh flowers island-wide to designated recipients. Despite its selling points, ABF has opportunities for further enhancement of its management system and customer support to remain competitive in the industry.

ABF’s target market is identified to be price-conscious, tech-savvy and time-sensitive individuals who widely hold white-collar jobs and tend to be more fast-paced. Besides, ABF’s marketing objectives were set out to be achieved by 31st December 2018: to obtain an increase in profits by $400,000, to increase the customer satisfaction levels by 20%, and to improve service levels in the aspects of on-time delivery performance by 25%.

The marketing plan draws the attention to ABF’s service failure concerning unfulfilled Valentine’s Day orders which were either delayed or not delivered by the couriers. Subsequently, ABF failed to account for its service failure as well as to provide timely responses to enquiries. For this reason, ABF’s target market felt negative disconfirmation between their expectations and ABF’s service performance. The marketing plan evaluates ABF’s service failure using the following concepts: temporal risk, hedonic or experiential value and process. Temporal risk portrayed the acceptable amount of time that the target market is willing to wait for the delivery of flowers which influences their pre-purchase decision-making process. Hedonic or experiential value is defined as value perceived by the target market through the holistic emotional sensations of enjoyment and contentment embedded in their shopping behaviour. For process, it is distinguished as a service encounter that leads to the value created by the target market which gives them a desirable position to discriminate.

To address ABF’s service failure, the marketing plan discusses two possible recommendations: recruitment of part-time employees and cross-training employees. The recruitment of part-time employees is supported by the concept of strategies for risk reduction, whereby the management of employees is perceived as a supplementary tool when planning and implementing ABF’s risk-management strategies. In contrast, the cross-training of employees is sustained by the concepts of value and customer satisfaction. Value illustrates the process of the target market turning service provided by ABF into value. For customer satisfaction, the target market perceives ABF’s service as valuable when the quality of service is desirable.

To conclude, the marketing plan urges ABF to take immediate actions to rectify its service failure issue, with objectives to increase profits, raise customer satisfaction levels and to improve service levels. By implementing the proposals, ABF can better prevent such service failure from reoccurring in future as well as to create more brand advocates.

1. Introduction

A Better Florist (ABF), co-founded by Steven Feiner who used to work for Google, was launched in late September 2015 (VentureBeat 2015). The company's competitive advantage is cheaper and faster delivery service as the flowers are directly sourced from Cameron Highlands, eliminating the middleman which saves cost and time (The Straits Times 2016).

1. Positioning Map

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Figure 1.1 Positioning Map

The X-axis represents the level of credibility as it is the promised quality which includes factors such as quality of flowers and delivery timing. In contrast, the Y-axis represents the price level which the target market has to pay for ABF's services.

1. Situation Analysis

1. SWOT Analysis

Based on the SWOT analysis, ABF emphasises greatly on convenience and flexibility by providing accessible physical stores and online services that offer consumers the option to customise their purchase orders. Also, it provides complimentary same-day carriage of fresh flowers island-wide to designated recipients. These selling points had since enticed and drawn many consumers into engaging ABF’s services during special occasions and events. However, on Valentine’s Day 2017, ABF failed to meet overwhelming demand which resulted in some unfulfilled delivery orders. Furthermore, there was a communication breakdown between ABF and its consumers during this timeframe. As a result, these service failures served as weaknesses of ABF and requires immediate service recovery measures to resolve its delivery issue. Since ABF has to compete against its competitors, it must improve on their management system and provide better customer support, to remain competitive in the industry as well as to salvage its tarnished brand reputation and declined brand loyalty.